


Black and Blue

by skivvysupreme



Category: Glee
Genre: Anxiety, M/M, Superhero Blaine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 22:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3546023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skivvysupreme/pseuds/skivvysupreme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nightbird is the hero of New York City, but, more importantly, he is late for dinner. Two days late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black and Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Now with a prequel! (http://archiveofourown.org/works/5830267)

Blaine is late for dinner. Again.

There was a time when Blaine’s tardiness annoyed Kurt to no end, back before they broke up, worked on themselves, got married, and moved into their one-bedroom apartment in New York. Before Blaine discovered his latent superpowers and decided to use his strength, flight, and enhanced vision for the good of the people, no matter the potential cost to himself.

Before Nightbird was born and became the hero Blaine always wanted to be. (Or, the hero Blaine had always been, Kurt thinks, just in armor and a cape, even if Blaine couldn’t see it.)

So, Kurt used to get annoyed, but now, he just worries, because Blaine coming home late is better than Blaine not coming home at all.

The problem is… the dinner Blaine is late for was two days ago.

The first night, Kurt sleeps. Blaine missing dinner is an unfortunate thing that happens sometimes, so Kurt just puts his untouched portions in the fridge, gets some work done on a few costumes, and goes to bed. He figures he’ll wake up with his husband curled around him, or having tucked himself into Kurt’s arms, depending on how the night has gone, and Kurt will spend breakfast listening to Blaine’s stories of the night before, if he wants to tell them.

(On the mornings when Blaine doesn’t, Kurt doesn’t push.)

When he wakes to find Blaine’s side of the bed empty and cold, he pauses for a moment, listening, because maybe Blaine’s in the shower or he’s in the kitchen making pancakes or the door is about to open because he’s run downstairs to take the trash out—

Kurt takes a deep breath. He knows these scenarios aren’t true—he hopes, but he knows they aren’t—and as the realization settles, tightness wraps around his chest and throat.

He reaches for his phone with shaking hands and taps out a quick text to a number that changes weekly but he always knows by heart:

**Status?**

Kurt knows the rules. Do not use points of reference in messages to the Night Phone. Delete all messages and call records to the Night Phone. Do not call Nightbird “honey” or “B,” even though Nightbird sometimes slips up in texts to Kurt and breaks that rule himself. Blaine has a phone, and Nightbird has a phone, and the two are not supposed to cross.

Kurt needs them to cross. He’s a pro at compartmentalizing, but he refuses to do it now. Blaine is his husband, and Blaine is Nightbird, and Kurt needs his husband or Nightbird or who _ever_ to be okay and come home.

There is no response to his text. Kurt feels like he might throw up if he sits there waiting, so he gets up and starts to putter about the apartment. He showers and puts on light blue pajama pants, instead of black ones like he was wearing before. He polishes the silverware. He folds his and Blaine’s socks and underwear and organizes it all by color in the drawer. He arranges the bottles on top of their dresser, first by size, and then in order of daily usage when that dissatisfies him, then by size again. It’s busywork, all of it, but he can’t concentrate on the actual work he has to do, and it keeps the scariest thoughts at bay.

By late afternoon, the apartment has never been cleaner.

His phone buzzes with a text, but it isn’t from his husband.

**Change of plans, we’re going to that new vegan place tonight instead of thai, is that ok with you guys?? I got Jesse to cave >:P**

**I PROMISE it’ll taste like real meat! <3**

Oh, god. Dinner with Rachel and Jesse. Kurt tries to get his heart to slow from the double-time thump it has maintained all day, tries to get a handle on himself as he thinks about his reply. This is one of several hard parts about Blaine’s night job; Kurt can’t even tell anyone when his husband goes missing.

_He’s not missing, Kurt, he’s just late. He’s 28 hours and 6 minutes late. No, 28 hours and 7 minutes late. He could be back by the time you have to meet up. He’s okay._

Even as Kurt thinks about it, Blaine being okay after not coming home and not texting him seems extremely unlikely, but Blaine could be back in the next three hours. He could be home by then.

Four hours later, he isn’t.

Kurt shoots off an apology text to Rachel, telling her that Blaine isn’t feeling well but to let them know how the restaurant is. A few moments later, he sees Blaine’s phone light up on the nightstand with Rachel’s **Feel better soon! <3**.

Blaine being home with some random stomach bug would be preferable right now. Even pale and hugging the toilet in a cold sweat, Blaine being home with the flu and with Kurt looking after him would be better than being hurt and alone in New York. _That’s what he is, isn’t he?_ Kurt thinks. The only plausible conclusion, now, is that Blaine is hurt, lying somewhere in the city, physically unable to return to him.

Kurt considers answering Rachel’s text as Blaine would, because even sick, Blaine would at least send a **thx** and some sort of encouraging emoji to acknowledge her, but he can’t bring himself to touch Blaine’s phone. It just highlights the fact that Blaine isn’t here to answer it himself.

He paces and twists his wedding band around his finger, because he’s run out of things to rearrange.

_33 hours and 34 minutes._

As the hours pass, and it gets late, and then very early, Kurt sets up camp on their bed, a mug of coffee in his hand and his computer on his lap. The caffeine isn’t going to help his anxiety, but it will make him feel productive, and it’s not like he was going to be able to sleep anyway. He scans news and neighborhood watch sites, searches _#nightbird_ on Twitter, refreshes and repeats.

Nothing. No Nightbird sightings within the past day or so, but no handsome, unidentified bodies discovered either.

With his nerves on edge and his heart still refusing to slow down, Kurt gets up to pour himself another cup. As he’s standing at the kitchen counter, pouring from the French press, there’s a harsh tap on the patio door. Kurt jumps and drops the press, and it falls into the sink, spilling coffee all over the counter as the mug drops to the tile floor and does the same.

“Caw! Caw!”

Kurt sighs. It’s the pair of crows that hangs out on their balcony. They adore Blaine, who feeds and talks to them daily, and they bring him little trinkets whenever they visit. At first, Kurt thought they were creepy, but over time, he has come to appreciate them; they’re fiercely intelligent, seeming to understand everything Blaine says to them, and they keep the disease-ridden pigeons away. And Blaine, who has gone so far as to give them names—Sable and Lenore, though Kurt can’t tell which is which—loves them.

They’re perched on the balcony rail now, making low, vibrating bird noises. Kurt slowly slides the patio door open, and one of the crows flutters its tail feathers and looks up at him as it says, “Caw?”

“He’s not here,” Kurt whispers, the words getting caught in his throat.

“Caw.”

Kurt doesn’t understand them the way Blaine does. He assumes the birds are hungry, so he fishes out their food dish from the kitchen cabinets, fills it, and sets it on the little patio table. The birds eat for a few moments, and then one of them raises its head and lets out a long, somber-sounding, “Caaaaaaaw.”

“I don’t know where he is. I’m sorry.” It feels absurd, apologizing to a pair of wild birds his husband has befriended, but ever since that day Blaine lifted their bed above his head with Kurt still on it while he was looking for a rogue bowtie, Kurt has come to terms with the fact that anything is possible.

“My husband is missing,” Kurt tells the crows, and as his own words hit his ears, he starts to cry. He’s held off all day, unwilling to face it, but these damn crows are looking around, looking through their open patio door for their friend, and the fact that someone else now knows Blaine isn’t there makes it real. “Well, maybe not, what’s the official missing persons report time? 48 hours?”

Kurt looks to the sky as if he might see Nightbird flying around in it and says, “You hear that, Birdie? I haven’t seen you since noon on Friday, so you have eight hours to get your ass back here, or so help me, I’ll… I’ll… Please don’t let it take eight hours, but I guess eight hours is fine if that means it happens at all. I just… I know something really bad has happened. But I don’t know how to find you, and I’m losing it here, B.”

One of the crows flies onto his shoulder and starts to ruffle his hair with its beak. The other hops onto his forearm and caws softly.

“Are you like messenger pigeons?” Kurt sniffs, wiping his eyes. “Could you find him?”

The crow on his arm caws again, loudly, and stretches its wings. Kurt doesn’t know if that’s a yes, but the gesture gives him an idea. He darts inside, dislodging the crows, who both “Caw!” after him in a disgruntled way, and slides the patio door shut. Then he grabs his keys, his phone, and his coat—dark, negative black instead of a lighter, more positive color, unfortunately, but it’s the nearest one to his fingertips—and runs out of the apartment.

There are only three people in the city who know where the Night Signal is: Blaine/Nightbird, Detective Crawford, and himself. Kurt climbs the fire escape of the abandoned, dilapidated boarding school five blocks from their apartment and hoists himself onto the roof. In a matter of minutes, the giant lamp is on, and the Night Signal—a bird silhouette in a white circle—lights up the sky over New York City.

Kurt sits on a crate next to the lamp and waits.

This is irrational, he knows it, because if Blaine can’t fly to their apartment, he certainly can’t fly onto this roof, but maybe, _somehow_ , it will help to bring him home. Maybe Detective Crawford is awake and he’ll see it, realize that Nightbird needs to be found, and rally whoever he needs to get something done. Maybe Nightbird will see it himself and know that they’re looking for him. Not that he wouldn’t already know that, but sometimes Blaine needs reminding that somebody misses him when he’s away.

Two hours pass before Kurt starts talking to the sky again.

“God damn it, Blaine! You can’t help yourself, can you? I—don’t get me wrong, I’m so, so proud of you, and I always have been. You are a hero. You’re _the_ hero of New York. And most days, even though it scares me, I love that you can be that, that you can be everything that you are. And I know, Nightbird is for the good of the people, but aren’t I one of the people? What about me? Fearlessly and forever, B, you promised. You promised! And you’ve obviously got the fearless part down, but we’re supposed to have forever, too, and we haven’t been married that long. Please, don’t do this. Don’t die for them, just come home for me. Be my husband first.”

No one answers. Of course, no one answers. But Kurt can’t sit here anymore. He can’t look at this city full of people his husband keeps trying to protect. Eight million lives and counting, and Blaine cares about all of them.

At this moment, on this roof, Kurt cares about two of them, and he’s counting himself.

“Caw!”

Kurt jumps—god, he keeps doing that, his poor heart—and looks towards the sound. One of Blaine’s crows has landed on his knee and is cawing rather loudly at him.

Kurt immediately knows what it wants. “Show me where he is,” he whispers. He’s barely able to believe it, but he _has_ to believe it, so as the crow jumps off his leg, he turns off the lamp and speeds as fast as his legs will carry him down the fire escape and back onto the street.

The crow flies a little overhead, the Night Signal come to life in the dawn, and as Kurt follows it, he realizes where it’s taking him. Kurt speeds up, full-on sprinting through the streets, and when he finally looks up at their apartment building, he sees that his patio door has been opened. As the crow flies up to the balcony, Kurt runs into the lobby, bounces restlessly on his feet during the elevator ride, and bursts through the front door.

“Blaine?! Blaine!”

Soft, pinkish-blues from the lightening sky outside pour in through the open patio door. The other crow, who caws at Kurt as he enters, sits on the kitchen counter and gazes down at the muddy, black- and blue-costumed lump that is Nightbird, who lies sprawled on his side in the coffee puddle on the floor.

“Oh my god,” Kurt sobs, running to the kitchen, and kneels on the floor. He wants to touch, but he doesn’t know where is safe, doesn’t know how badly Blaine is hurt, so he reaches for the black mask over his eyes and gently peels it off.

Blaine’s eyes open, the left more so than the right because of the dark bruise around it. “Kurt,” he says, breathing hard. He pushes himself up onto his knees, licking over his cut lip, and reaches for him.

Kurt hesitates. All this time, all this waiting, and he just wants to hold him and never let go, but if Blaine is seriously hurt—

“It’s okay, baby, I’m okay.”

The relief washes over him— _Blaine can move, he’s alive, he’s here, he’s home_ —and Kurt wraps his arms around his shoulders, his breath leaving him in a shudder as he cries. He kisses Blaine hard on the mouth; Blaine winces with the bruises around the side of his mouth and the cut on his lip, but a cut lip is nothing compared to how much worse this could be, and it certainly doesn’t stop him from kissing back.

“Blaine, you—I thought—I tried not to think it, but I thought you were dead, I can’t—“

Blaine clings to Kurt and hugs him tight. Kurt can hear the tears in Blaine’s voice, too, as he whispers, “I’m so sorry, Kurt. I was helping this woman and her kids, they were getting away from her husband, and—fuck, that guy was scary. I got them out, they got away, and then I don’t even know, the guy was really angry and he came after me, and I tried to take off, get some height on him, but he caught my cape. I woke up a mile away, on the riverbank.”

Kurt can’t help the hysterical thought that crosses his mind— _No capes!—_ and he sobs again, running his hand through Blaine’s hair. “Oh, god, you could have—“

“I know. I don’t know how long I was out, I think my body was trying to heal itself. I woke up and everything hurt.” He reaches up and puts his gloved hands on Kurt’s face. “The Night Signal was you, wasn’t it?”

Kurt nods. Blaine’s touching him, he’s solid, he’s there. He’s alive.

“Well, I was laying there in the mud, and I looked up into the sky, and there you were. And then Sable and Lenore found me, and I knew I had to get home. It took all my strength to fly back to you.”

He made it. He’s okay. This precious, foolish, amazing man Kurt loves is alive.

“It’s Sunday,” Kurt says.

“ _Sunday?_ Shit, Kurt, I’m sorry, I won’t worry you like that again.”

Kurt shakes his head. They’ll fight about it later, but they both know that Blaine will go back out there as soon as he has recuperated. “You can’t guarantee that.”

“Then I won’t let anyone catch me off-guard again.”

“Just make it back to me, okay?”

Blaine nods and puts his head on Kurt’s shoulder. “I know the sun just came up, but I just want to take a shower and crawl into bed with my husband. Can we please do that now?”

“Yeah. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Half an hour later, they’re lying in bed, freshly showered, and Nightbird’s filthy uniform lays where they left it on the kitchen floor. Blaine’s out first, spooned small in Kurt’s arms, as he insisted that Kurt hold him tight despite the bruises.

Kurt has no problem with that. He never wants to let go. He presses a kiss to Blaine’s bare shoulder, where the scent of his body wash wafts warm and familiar, and he treasures the feel of Blaine’s chest rising and falling with his breath, because _Blaine is alive_.

It’s his last thought before the exhaustion of the past two days finally sets in, and he falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> An anon on tumblr, who apparently knows the shortcut to my heart, prompted: "something where Blaine is an actual superhero named Nightbird and he goes missing for a few days/gets hurt/both and his boyfriend Kurt’s all worried :)"


End file.
